Organizational Culture

Today I read an article from the Journal of Extension about assessing the organizational culture of Ohio State University. Berrio (2003) described the research effort was employed to "diagnose issues related to leadership, teamwork, and management behavior and to determine the impact of the issues on employee outcomes." The researchers used the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument to frame their inquiry.

This tool measured four culture types: clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy. They correlated the scores from individuals on these types with gender, location, program area, job title, age, and length of employment. This study found that the organizational culture of OSU Extension was "clan culture." Smart & Hamm (1993) found that two thirds of colleges and universities in the United States have a clan culture.

What does a "clan culture" mean? Berrio (2003) applied this culture to OSUE and found the following characteristics:
1. Concentrates on internal maintenance with flexibility, concern for people, and sensitivity for customers.
2. A family organization, friendly place to work, people share a lot about themselves
3. Leaders are viewed as mentors or facilitators
4. Loyalty and tradition are the "glue" for the organization, with a high level of commitment among the workers
5. Individual development, morale, teamwork, participation, and consensus are emphasized

There are other caveats to this study and not all demographic groups were strongly in the "clan culture type." However, I found this study interesting to help frame our discussions at the recent ISE.

I keep thinking about one of the guiding questions that Shelly and Don gave us:
-What brought you to Extension?
-Why do you stay in Extension?

It is clear to me from the discussion we had as a group that people are very committed to the job and feel very fulfilled as a result of engagement in the work. I think that translates positively to our clients.

I would like to share a success with the group related to developing a "culture" in our organization and with our constituents. One of the questions Don asked me to address regarding blogging: was what kind of impact has it had on my community?

SUCCESS STORY

Last night at my 4-H council meeting, a leader approached me and said:
"You have inspired me with your blog. I have worked with my livestock project members to create a blog. They are putting pictures up of their steers and will be writing about their experience with their project. Our plan is to share the link with potential buyers to help better tell our story and market the livestock throughout the year."

My reflection is that she has heard me saying that we need to increase our buyer pool and the only way we can do that is through ongoing, sustained relationships with buyers. She translated that mantra mediated through technology :)! I am SO PROUD! Also all of this was done without my awareness and came up in formal conversation.

So I suppose it is a reminder to me that change takes time. Often 9 out of 10 projects I attempt fail, however there is always something positive to be gained from these projects. It is nice to be in an organization that appreciates innovation and empowers employees to engage in change projects.

Please share your thoughts and ideas on the blog through posts or comments.

References

Berrio, A. A. (2003). An organizational culture assessment using the competing values framework: A profile of ohio state university extension. Journal of Extension, 41, 2, 2FEA3.

Smart, J. C., & Hamm, R. E. (1993). Organizational effectiveness and mission orientations of two-year colleges. Research in Higher Education, 34, 4, 489-502.

Proposal from the ISE: Team Spirit

Hello All,

As you know part of blogging is maintaining the momentum! I thought it might be useful to send to the entire group some ideas I had brewing from the ISE. My final World Cafe group and I discussed and refined these on day three of the conference. Please provide comments and ideas for the proposal in the comments section of the blog! Happy Blogging :)!

Working Proposal: Team Spirit Connection Methods

Rationale: Faculty and staff can develop connections, collaborations, partnerships, and programs if they simply find an intentional method for interaction. Below are three ideas for creating some intentionality behind faculty/staff interaction.

I.                   Network Weaver

a.      One or two individuals in each region would be selected

b.      Purpose: to connect faculty members (new and pre-existing) with other faculty/staff members who have similar interests or have resources available to provide insight to particular ideas/topics/educational content. They might connect faculty members to other faculty across the state as well. This will help to “silo bust.”

c.       Serve as the “go-to” person for new faculty members to help get them connected to other faculty members as needed.

d.      Make short presentations at regional faculty meetings “spotlighting” a faculty member’s program, personal strengths, teaching techniques, or other types of strategies or elements that could be shared with other faculty members.

II.                Reciprocal Apprenticeship

a.       Faculty and Staff self-select and make a commitment to reaching out on a monthly basis to one other faculty or staff member.

b.      Method of Communication: Phone, office communicator, email, in-person, skype

c.       Purpose: Retain new faculty/staff, share ideas between employees for response to problems, building programs, personal relationship development, sharing processes or content, or connecting to resources.

d.      Roll-out plan: Article in Extension Insider with Team Spirit column

                                                              i.      Explain that it is a self-selected process.

                                                            ii.      Members should select someone that they either do not know very well and would like to share ideas, or someone who they respect well and want to find more time to connect.

                                                          iii.      One time per month a communication connection should occur between the two individuals.

                                                          iv.      Put some prompt questions in the article for ideas for communicating between the two.

                                                            v.      Send out a surveymonkey at the end of month one and in subsequent months to measure if participants are interacting, and if so the impact that it had on them. Also generate ideas for structuring or adding any formality.

e.       The idea is to start out with a loose arrangement to gauge the importance or value of such a venture. If it is effective and people would like to add some formality to the reciprocal apprenticeship it would be explored in the future.

III.             The Research Connection

a.      Purpose: to share the “latest and greatest” research, trade books, or best practices among faculty members.

b.      Method: Small groups will form to read, share, reflect, and apply their learning to their practice.

                                                              i.      Groups can either monthly read the same articles/books/best practices and then reflect on their meaning and apply to their work setting OR

                                                            ii.      Groups may each read a piece of research, and then create a short annotated bibliography (a paragraph with: citation, what was the article about, what did it mean to the reader, what are the implications for practice) to submit to the group to stimulate discussion among the group.

c.       Groups may be Cross-Categorical or within Categories

                                                              i.      Cross-Categorical Groups Might Delve Into Research Areas such as:

1.      Organizational behavior/management

2.      Adult Education

3.      Leadership

4.      Organizational Change

5.      Organizational Learning

                                                            ii.      Categories Might Delve Into Research Areas Such As (for example):

1.      Youth Leadership Development

2.      Obesity and Early Childhood

3.      Community Change Efforts

d.      Sign-ups can occur using the ISE system

                                                              i.      Can utilize the ISE system to report learning and change that has occurred so that it is a process for professional development.

e.       Group Conveners

                                                              i.      Each group needs a convener to get the group together on an on-going basis, choose the method that works best with your group.

f.       Extension Insider

                                                              i.      Groups should select one article/book/best practice to showcase in the insider under the “Check this Out” section. Include the citation and the elements of the annotated bibliography above with an emphasis on application to practice.

Thanks to all of you!

My head and heart are still swirling from the wonderful discussion and profound ideas! Shelley and I will be posting the PPT's from all three presentations erm . . . "somewhere" over the coming week. Maybe as part of the SDETeam web page. Stay tuned for that! I know I will be going back over both of the presentations from Jarche and White to look at charts and graphics and try to retain as much information and as many of the ideas as I can! Here's to all of you!

Hello

Thought I give a post since Jenny was kind enough to set this up. Currently for Blogs available to the public we'll need to use Blogger or a similar app. SharePoint currently allows us to have Internal Blogs and when we finally upgrade to SharePoint 2010, I hope we'll be able to do public facing Blogs on it as well.

There is a Self Directed Team Site Blog on SharePoint at
http://extteam.missouri.edu/SiteDirectory/sdet/blog/default.aspx

and the Self Directed Team Site at http://extteam.missouri.edu/SiteDirectory/sdet/default.aspx

I think this is a great opportunity to practice and use an outside application, so thanks again Jenny for setting this up.

Welcome to the Change Blog

I was inspired by all of the discussion at our Negotiating Profound Change ISE. Particularly when Connie Mefford said, "why don't we communicate through a blog." I attempted from memory to add people from the ISE as authors and you should have received a request through email. However, I could not remember everyone so please send me an email to flattj@missouri.edu for people I have missed.

Don sent us home with the charge to look at the article by A. J. Schuler and identify which reason we might have for resisting change. For me it is number 4: People fear they lack the competence to change. Particularly I feel the fear of negotiating the process of change among seasoned colleagues and how that will be received from a very new colleague. However, Schuler suggests that change campaigns must be staged from the broad to the specific.

So I had two ideas: 1. connecting faculty across categories in a capacity of support and resources (i.e. giving someone to call when things are tough or they have questions), and 2. creating a mechanism for discussing research and trade books relevant to extension cross-categorically or within specific subject areas (i.e. organizational change, adult education, leadership development OR youth development and business and industry).

I suppose I "vetted" these ideas at our recent ideas and am still in the process of co-creating what the manifestation of the ideas are! My plan is to type up proposals related to the two ideas and share them with Team Spirit and beyond to help develop a more specific plan. This helps minimize my fear that I am "off-base" or disconnected with the feelings, perceptions and experiences of my colleagues.

Let's make this an organic experience! Respond to this post or post your own ideas. Again, if I have left off anyone and you did NOT receive an invitation to be an author via email please send me a note and I will add you.

THANKS for experimenting with this method with me :)!!